A subway rider chokes a belligerent fellow passenger on the floor of an uptown F train, leading to his death. A hooded gunman kills the CEO of a multibillion-dollar health insurance company on a midtown sidewalk. The two New York cases had little in common, other than generating fear, controversy, and thousands of headlines. They’d occurred 18 months apart. Yet here they were coming to dramatic conclusions just two hours apart, and with major ramifications for Mayor Eric Adams.
At a City Hall press conference, his police commissioner praised her department’s pursuit of the man who, it’s alleged, fatally shot Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. “NYPD investigators combed through thousands of hours of video, followed up on hundreds of tips, and processed every bit of forensic evidence, DNA, fingerprints, IP addresses, and so much more to tighten the net,” Jessica Tisch said at a City Hall press conference. “We deployed drones, K-9 units, and scuba divers. We leveraged the domain awareness system, Argus cameras, and conducted aviation canvasses.”
Which sounded highly impressive. Had New York’s cops uncovered the name of the alleged shooter on their own? Well, no. Had they determined how he traveled, during the course of five days, from the city to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he had just been arrested? Nope. Had police themselves spotted Luigi Mangione and cornered him? Actually, a McDonald’s employee was the one to raise the alarm.
Yes, that identification would have been impossible if not for the diligent work of NYPD detectives and technicians frantically combing through hundreds of hours of surveillance video to yield photos of the person of interest. And much of that video might have been inaccessible if not for the efforts of Tisch, in a previous job as the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for IT, pushing to expand the reach of the city’s camera and surveillance system. But it all made for a peculiar sort of victory lap—especially when combined with the outcome of the second high-profile case.
Daniel Penny, a former Marine, had been acquitted on a count of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator with a history of mental health problems who was ranting and threatening passengers inside a subway car. (A second-degree manslaughter charge against Penny was dismissed.) Days before the verdict, Adams had seemed to defend Penny’s actions. He was now conspicuously muted. “Jordan should not have had to die. And I strongly believe, as I’ve been stating, probably from day one, we have a mental health system that is broken,” the mayor said. “But a jury of his peers heard the case, so all the facts and all the evidence, and made a decision and I join [District Attorney Alvin] Bragg in stating that I respect the process.”
The CEO shooting got more national attention and sparked a deeply necessary, if ultimately futile, discussion of this country’s fractured health care system. But it’s the subway case that will likely resonate more with city voters and have greater ramifications for Adams’s reelection chances next year. In 2021, Adams ran for mayor and won largely on his background as a former cop and on his promise to reduce crime after a pandemic-driven spike. And his administration has made progress on public safety: The number of murders in 2024 and burglaries will be down by roughly 15% and 18%, respectively, from two years ago (though rape and felony assault complaints have jumped). Yet the public is often more responsive to perceptions than to statistics: An October poll by Siena College and The New York Times showed 48% of city’s registered voters still agree with the statement that “crime in New York City has gotten out of control.”
